


The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

by shamusandstone (theleaveswant)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, Boats and Ships, Community: apocalyptothon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-09
Updated: 2008-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/shamusandstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demons have overrun the earth, but what of the sea? AU for Supernatural third season finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

**Author's Note:**

> For apocalyptothon prompt “Demons have over-run the Earth, but what of the Sea? Calypso is awake...and she's not one to share. Lots of Will would be wonderful!”   
> Don't know that Will's contribution quite counts as “lots” but it's more than none. Line “[slid out of my] dreams like a baby out of the nurse's hands . . .” borrowed from a Bruce Cockburn song, “When You Give It Away”.

Snarling with effort and fury, Dean hauls Sam's limp, sodden body over the edge of the boat.

“Not this time,” he mutters, a mantra of desperation, as he crouches to administer CPR. “You are not gonna die, Sammy, not now, not again.” Not that it will matter in a minute: the ocean tosses them like a bronco and any wave could be the one to swamp them for good, spill them both into the water and out of daylight forever. Ungrateful though it may sound, Dean really wishes their new pal hadn't been quite so prompt or enthusiastic in her response to their plea.

Sam sputters and coughs. As soon as he is confident that his brother is breathing on his own, Dean lunges for the motor, yanking the ignition cord with all his strength. It won't start. As if things weren't bad enough, he can still hear the howling over and between the crash of the storm, and it sounds closer than before. He feels a momentary swell of hope—maybe hell hounds can't swim—but the hull bucks again and sends him scrambling for purchase.

“Dean!” Sam shouts, and Dean follows his gaze. The bandage on his side has come loose and he's bleeding again. A lot. Funny how he hadn't noticed that . . .

The last thing Dean sees before he blacks out is a ship, huge and awful, silhouetted against the lightning-bright raindrops and bearing down on them fast.  
\--  
Sam slides out of his dreams like a baby out of the nurse's hands onto the hard floor of day. He tugs on yesterday's clothes, steps out onto the porch. Hot as a sauna already and worse in the sun. There are birds in the tree across the road, some kind of wild parrots, chattering loud as a construction site, and cicadas buzzing in the grass. Key West, so far into the ocean it's a little unclear whether you're still in the States. Even with all that's happening, the tourists keep coming. Just as well, given how many Islanders make a living selling fishing excursions and Hemingway artifacts.

Dean is sitting on a picnic table next to the Impala in the last wedge of shadow cast by their resort cabin. There's an open styrofoam box by his knee. The contents are shiny and yellow and apparently irresistible to wasps. Key lime pie, the real stuff. “Nice breakfast,” Sam observes.

“Want some?” Dean pulls a second plastic fork from his shirt pocket. Sam rolls his eyes but takes it, scoops up a globule. Sticky-sour-sweet gums up his mouth so he goes back inside for a glass of water. When he returns Dean is refolding a map. His speech is garbled around the fork stuck inside his cheek, but to Sam he's no more incomprehensible than usual. “Talked to that old guy again. He still won't take us out there, but he did give us some directions. Kind of. Mentioned a cousin who'd rent us a boat.”

“Good work, Dean.”

Now it is Dean's turn to roll his eyes. “You still sure about this?”

“I never was,” Sam sighs.“But right now it looks like the best of very few options.”  
\--  
“Dean?” What's odder than how far away Sam's voice sounds is how it's not being drowned out. Something's missing, he can't hear—the storm. That's right. He's still in the little boat, he can feel the ridges and dents in the aluminum through his soaked clothes, but it doesn't seem to be moving. Is it over already?

His eyes flutter open—easier said than done—and there's someone bent over him, a face, sad and benevolent. Not Sam's. The man from before, the one with the accent and the scarred chest.

“Sammy?” Dean tries to ask, but the sound gets stuck between brain and throat. He tries to back away as the man leans close, but there is nowhere to go. The man opens his mouth to speak.  
\--  
“She's cute,” Dean says, looking over Sam's shoulder at the lithograph in the book.

“She's a goddess.”

“If you say so.”

“That's Calypso, or at least it's what she looked like the last time anyone saw her and lived to write it down. One of the oldest deities known, possibly _the_ oldest if you believe the folks who connect her to the first sea-crossing peoples in the Upper Palaeolithic.”

“Dude, I remember.” Dean stretches his arms over his head. “You told me all this days ago, before we came out looking for her.”

“I just want you to know we're not exactly playing with Nerf pistols here, alright? These are forces more powerful than we've ever messed with before. We are taking a gargantuan risk just trying to find her.”

Dean turns on Sam, his veneer of nonchalance suddenly stripped, and Sam cowers a little. “Yeah, well what choice to we have? We tried going after Lilith directly and all it did was make her mad. Now she's sweeping the continent, killing, possessing and turning people against each other, all on account of us. She killed Ruby, she killed Bobby. And you've seen for yourself, her little rampage is like chum in the water for all of them other demonic sons of bitches. All over the world, hunters are saying, violent supernatural activity is at an all-time high. It's the fucking apocalypse, Sam, for real this time, and it's our fault. If we don't find some way of stopping it . . .” He can't finish the sentence. It has no end, because its end is The End. "Besides, it's not like I have much time to lose at this point; the year's up tomorrow."  
\--  
“Dean Winchester,” the scarred man begins, then hesitates. He appears to change his mind about what comes next. Then his eyes lock into Dean's with a burning intensity. “Do you fear death?”

Dean cannot speak. He is beginning to lose feeling in his extremities. Somehow he manages to nod.  
\--  
They reach the island in late afternoon, the sun edging slowly but steadily toward the horizon. Ogygia, it's called. Someone around here knew their classics. As they creep around the curve of the beach from where they've hidden their boat, it's like walking into a scene from the Odyssey. A man, tanned with long dark hair and dressed like something from _The Princess Bride_ , sits perched on a rock by the shore, facing out to sea. A dark-skinned woman reclines in the sand by his feet, rolled half over with her back to them, wrapped in something that might be fabric or seaweed. It hurts Sam's brain to look directly at her; she seems almost to shimmer, her skin like scales, a mirage, sunlight shattering on the water's surface.

They are talking quietly to one another. It's more by luck than skill that the Winchesters get close enough to hear what they're saying, since there's precious little cover on the beach.

“But what happens,” the man says, “if they succeed? If they do take over the world, will they still need human bodies? Will there be anyone left for me to ferry, and what happens to me if there's not?” English accent. This close, Sam can see through the deep opening in his shirtfront a cluster of white worms: one hell of a DIY patch-up there.

“I cannot say,” the woman replies. She has an accent too, West Indian but Sam doesn't know the area well enough to place it better than that. 'Can' sounds more like 'kyan'. “The Dutchman has sailed as long as she has had a job to do. At the time she was created, no one imagined a day would come when she would not. Why?” she asks, as the man rises and walks towards the surf. “You don't want to helm her no more?”

“I never wanted to. One day in the world of the living for ten years delivering souls to the land of the dead never seemed to me fair compensation, but while Elizabeth lived it was enough. When she died there was our family, children and grandchildren, and that was enough. But they left me for another frontier, the ocean of grass and treasure raw from the hills. It's been over a century since any of them came to visit me, so I can only assume they've all died or forgotten. There's nothing for me on land anymore. I have, if you deign to call this cursed existence living, nothing left to live for.”

Sam's heart leaps to his throat. It _is_ him. The one he'd been praying to find, the secret hope he couldn't tell Dean about. The captain of the Flying Dutchman.

“I'm tired, Calypso,” the man continues with a weak mockery of a laugh. “So very tired. I just want to see my wife again.” He closes his eyes. “Please let me go.”

“You know I can't do that.” Calypso says, lifting gracefully to what must be her feet (though for a moment Sam was sure he saw a fish's tail). “Until someone else's heart takes the place of yours, it's captain you are and captain you'll stay. You are the ship, and while she lives, you live.”  
\--  
“I'll warn you: a deal with me is just as binding as a deal with a demon. The setting may be different but the terms are the same.”

Dean doesn't care. He will say anything now, do anything that will keep him out of Hell without putting Sam there in his place. But where is Sam? Dean's attempt at speech comes out in a gurgle but somehow the man catches his meaning and turns to look.

Sam is not in the boat. Dean experiences a flash of panic which only intensifies when he sees Sam a few yards away, swimming hard--in the direction of the looming black ship. The scarred man lunges for the edge, as if he means to leap in after him, but changes his mind.

Let him find the chest, if that's what he's after. One way or another, the The Dutchman will have her captain.


End file.
